CALL FOR PAPERS: Childrenâ€™s Literature Society of the American Literature Association

The Childrenâ€™s Literature Society of the ALA seeks abstracts for two panels on childrenâ€™s literature for the American Literature Association Conference to be held May 25-28, 2006, at The Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, CA.

With the location of this yearâ€™s conference in mind, The Children's Literature Society panels deal with exploring innovation and re-envisioning of narrative and gender in children's literature.

Innovation is at the heart of childrenâ€™s literature; the genre has a rich tradition of experimentation â€“from reflecting radical social changes (such as the development of new family structures) to providing an arena for narrative innovation. In her groundbreaking book *Radical Change*, Eliza Dresang explores the ways that new digital technologies have influencedchildrenâ€™s narrative, producing new forms. Narrative experimentation has also been strongly reflected in childrenâ€™s postmodern picture books and new digital texts for children. We are looking for papers that explore narrativeinnovation in childrenâ€™s literatureâ€”ranging from traditional print to film and digital formats.

What kinds of narrative innovation do we find in childrenâ€™s literature texts? What do these changes have to tell us about childrenâ€™s literature as a genre? About narrative? About reading and storytelling? In what way(s) do these changes reflect on the future of childrenâ€™s storytelling? How dothese changes reflect changes in subject matter, themes, character types and development? Why is it that childrenâ€™s literature has been a welcoming space for experimentation and innovation?

Frontiers of Change: Re-envisioning Gender in American Children's Literature

Although rigid and prescriptive stereotypes are common in childrenâ€™s literature, recent and not-so-recent texts have challenged such gender representations. In fact, these texts open up whole new domains, in which gender is re-envisioned and explored. Some of these texts are overtly feminist, some challenge both male and female stereotypes, deconstructing themale/female binary (such as the fearful knight in *The Knight Who Was Afraid of the Dark* or transgendered protagonists like Dicey Tillerman in Cynthia Voigtâ€™s *Homecoming*). For this panel, we are looking for papers that explore the ways that childrenâ€™s literature serves as a site for exploring and re-forming gender.

How do we see gender reflected in childrenâ€™s literature? How have reflections and/or attitudes about gender changed â€“ or not â€“ in recent years? Are depictions of homosexuality or bisexuality becoming more prevalent? Are they still dealt with in limited ways? What kinds of treatments of females and/or males do we see â€“ breaking stereotypes, reinforcing stereotypes, or avoiding them by making androgynous ortransgendered characters? In what ways do notions of gender reflect ethnic or cultural attitudes? Has childrenâ€™s literature become less dichotomous when it comes to gender or is it only a superficial improvement?